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“This project is like an archaeological dig” writes Maxim Dondyuk of ‘Untitled Project: Chernobyl’, a vast treasure trove of an online exhibition. It combines found imagery storytelling the socio-political history of Ukraine, with the artist’s own works of hastily deserted landscapes and snowy, overgrown terrains, giving the viewer hundreds of images, click throughs, moving image pieces and news clippings to explore. Review by Nicola Jeffs
Pace Gallery, 6 Burlington Gardens, Mayfair, London W1S 3ET
The gallery attendant at Pace warned me before I could even get a foot through the door. By entering, she explained, I'm consenting to being filmed. It's nothing to worry about, of course— it's just art. But that's precisely Trevor Paglen’s point. He has spent his career exploring the nature of artificial intelligence and data collection and, in this new exhibition, offers a reminder that these practices are never as benign as they appear. Review by Kaitlyn Kane
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, 5-9 Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
2019 saw Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca represent Brazil at the Venice Biennale with a new video titled ‘Swinguerra,’ in the Giardini della Biennale. And whilst it’s less than a year since Venice, the world that ‘Swinguerra’ originally inhabited seems like a lifetime ago. Its presentation in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin comes amidst a global pandemic, blazing wildfires and a deepening culture war on both sides of the Atlantic. And whilst these topics have dominated the media 2020, they have been core issues in Brazil for a number of years with the continued deforestation of the Amazon and increasing violence against LGBTQ+ communities. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy
MeetFactory, o. p. s., Ke Sklárně 3213/15, 150 00 Praha 5, Czech Republic
Curated by Tereza Jindrová, the exhibition inaugurated a long-term programme line titled ‘Other Knowledge’. If one of the pillars of Western modernity is rationality and the division between nature and culture, the involved artists challenge both of these notions and propose to open up to a much wider array of epistemologies. Review by Jaroslava Tomanova
Fuller Rosen Gallery, 1928 NW Lovejoy St, Portland, OR 97209, United States
Areas of ambiguity and endless possibilities are the grounds from which the two-person exhibition featuring the work of Devin Harclerode and Laura Camila Medina springs. Visible through the front windows of Fuller Rosen Gallery in Northwest Portland, Harclerode’s ‘Beat Curtains’ (all 2020), featuring resin and epoxy dyed beads that dissipate down their strands into snippets of hair, hint at the hybrid nostalgic-mythic-atemporal worlds that await visitors. Review by Laurel McLaughlin
Netwerk Aalst, Houtkaai 15, 9300 Aalst, Belgium
In ‘Eve and the Snake’, the story accompanying Alex Cecchetti and Laure Prouvost’s magnificently expressive ‘Occupie Paradit’, Adam and Eve’s lives were unaffected by children, friends, enemies, celebratory events, bouts of pain or any other unique or unexpected circumstances. Every day was like the other until the snake arrived. And that changed everything. Review by John Gayer
Metro Pictures, 519 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
Gary Simmons is a Los Angeles based artist with New York roots. On view at Metro Pictures, New York is ‘Screaming into the Ether’ consisting of a collection of paintings that expands Simmons’ examination into cultural nuances. ‘Screaming into the Ether’ confronts the propagation of racial stereotypes which continue to frame the world. Review by Sheena Carrington
Unconcerned by the rhetoric of art language and the trends of the contemporary art market, this work is a true example of art as activism, motivated by genuine care and respect for others. ‘Altered’ depicts people whose bodies have been altered through very different circumstances. Review by Gabriella Sonabend
Seventeen, 270-276 Kingsland Road, London E8 4DG
The works have largely one-word titles, and have the ability to describe something large and boundaryless: ‘Stream’, ‘Flood’, ‘Bad Decisions’, ‘Constellation‘; and in other instances specific anatomical objects of focus – ‘Retina’; ‘Tract’, ‘Spit’. The decision to title in this way leaves the viewer with a tight entry point, that either hones into a specific event or zooms out to a dynamic that goes beyond the capacities of the frame. Review by Alice Gale-Feeny
Platform Southwark, 1 Joan St, South Bank, London SE1 8BS
In 1970, a group of students started weekly meetings at the London School of Economics; they called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment, education, the age of consent and in being treated as mentally unwell. Celebrating 50 years of activism, radical protest and positive queerness ‘GLF at 50: The Art of Protest’ at Platform Southwark is part of a sprinkling of events marking half a century of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and their core assertion that ‘Gay is Good’. Their manifesto (republished for this exhibition) was a seminal clarion call for equality. Review by Ian Giles
The British-American artist Henry Hudson is known for his ‘Jungles': a colourful collection of plasticine works that have been exhibited around the world. And while he has an upcoming exhibition in India showcasing exactly that, he’s also venturing outside of his comfort zone. Recently, he has been exploring other mediums; ceramics, oil and iPad paintings, some of which will be on display at another exhibition in Vienna this fall. I joined Hudson at his East London studio to discuss what he’s been up to during lockdown and the pandemic-inspired works that are currently in progress. Interview by Shelby Wilder
PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, 451 & 465 Saint-Jean Street Montréal (Quebec) H2Y 2R5, Canada
In addressing the diaspora, it is a mistake to think national and cultural identity can be rendered in any fixed format marked by an artist’s displacement from one place to another, as if the experience of a second generation immigrant who only knows of their native culture could be compared to someone who is forcefully removed from their place of origin. Review by Elaine Y.J Zheng
How can we rebuild the world? A global pandemic, wide-spread racial injustices at boiling point and unfair cultural systems that need urgently addressing. How can the arts contribute to rebuilding the world, pulling us out of the times we are living through and give hope for a better future? How can we embrace this moment to improve those unfair cultural systems which pre-existed the pandemic, such as its carbon impact; the financial precariousness of the artist and the inequitable landscape of the art world? 'The Artist as Consultant', our series of digital discussions was born out of these questions. E-WERK Luckenwalde Director and Curator Helen Turner reflects.
